The minutes that followed seemed like an eternity as they sat contemplating the terrible fate with which their enemy had threatened them, and now that they knew they had been poisoned they almost at once began to believe that they could feel the symptoms of the noxious drug.
The intense heat from the tropical sun beating down on the deck above their heads and the stale smell of the airless cabin were calculated to induce drowsiness in anyone, but Richard and Rex had slept long and well returning from Jamaica in the launch the previous night, and both felt that the extreme torpidity which afflicted them must be partially attributable to some cause other than their surroundings.
Marie Lou had been sitting for a long time in one position and when she moved her leg she found that she had pins-and-needles in her foot, which with a sudden feeling of panic she put down to the first effects of the poison.
Simon was now conscious that in addition to his utter weariness he had a splitting headache; and this he could not help regarding, with a slight quickening of the heart, as a first sign of his approaching death.
The instinct of all of them was to do something—to get up and try to break their way out of the cabin—but they knew that, even if they succeeded, that would not save them.
The Negro guards outside were armed, so could kill them or force them back. In spite of the gruelling heat, on the dock beyond the side of the ship a considerable crowd was still mustered, patiently waiting to learn what was to be done with the body-snatchers. They might perhaps bribe the guards, but if they attempted to leave the ship they would only be pulled to pieces, as at the first sight of them another wave of furious animosity would be certain to surge through the mob. Even if by some miracle they could escape from their guards and avoid a lynching, they had not the least idea what kind of toxin had been used to poison them, so they had no means of knowing what antidote they ought to take, quite apart from the fact that it might be exceedingly difficult to procure.
There was nothing that they could do but await events, and when they felt death creeping over them commend their spirits to the Lords of Light in the hope that those Timeless Ones might afford some protection in their extremity when they reached the astral.
Yet even that seemed a slender hope, because all of them knew sufficient of the Law to realise that any human who elects to wage war upon the Powers of Darkness does so at his own peril. In the great accounting he will receive due credit for the effort, but failure to emerge triumphant from such a conflict brings penalties which must be borne without complaint, so great suffering may have to be endured before the account is balanced and, in the end, the due reward obtained.
They had also learnt quite enough about Zombies in the last few hours to know that when they died their spirits would not be free to pass on until their bodies had ceased to be animated by the power that held them enslaved, and that those spirits would feel all the tribulations which might be inflicted upon their earthly clay.
De Richleau knew that there was one way out. Richard’s pistol had not been taken from him and he still had about two dozen rounds of ammunition for it. If they used the pistol to kill one another, and the last to survive among them committed suicide, they might escape—providing that the killing was done in such a manner as to render their bodies useless. A shot apiece through the back of the neck, breaking the spinal cord where it joins the skull, would serve, since there would be no way of repairing the blasted bone after death, and no corpse with a shattered spine could labour in the fields as a Zombie.
But that was a way out which he would not even contemplate. To kill the others, except by surprise, would mean obtaining their consent; as it was obviously impossible for him to borrow Richard’s pistol and catch even one of them napping, without running the risk of bungling the job. If they agreed to let him kill them that would be tantamount to suicide; and afterwards he would have to commit suicide himself.
To do so was unthinkable; for it is written that no spirit is ever sent a greater load of suffering than by exerting its whole will it can bear. To commit suicide, as a means of escaping any other form of death, is, therefore, to interfere with one’s kama. All suffering is the result of past debts which have been piled up in previous lives, and these must be worked off sooner or later. In consequence suicide is no escape—only a postponement—and for those who are weak enough to take it there is the additional penalty to be borne: for a greater or lesser time, according to the cowardice of the case, the spirit is not free to continue the great journey but remains tied, and must go through the last few awful moments of the self inflicted act again and again and again, until at last it is released.
‘If only we hadn’t lost the second lot of impedimenta,’ said Richard, after a long silence, ‘we could have made a pentacle in which to die. It might at least have served to protect us for those few minutes in which one blacks out at the end of every incar, and given us a sporting chance to fight afterwards.’
The Duke did not reply, but it was those words which caused a great light to dawn suddenly in his mind. He had always known that in his magical operations he was not quite White, but just a little Grey. He had not used his powers for self-advancement or personal aims, but almost unwittingly he still allowed his own deep-rooted passions and convictions to influence him. For example, he did not regard the Nazis from an entirely detached point of view, as a menace to the welfare of mankind; he hated them, with all the hatred of which his virile personality was capable; and that was wrong.
Perhaps it was because of that slight uncertainty of his own powers that in his magical operations he had always followed the rituals of the text-books and utilised such things as garlic, asafoetida grass, crucifixes, horseshoes and many other symbols. These things in themselves were, he knew, only focuses to attract power; they had not an atom of power in themselves, but were just bundles of herbs or pieces of wood and iron. A pure White Magician, confident in his own strength, would have despised them and relied entirely upon his own will.
Without any of these things, or pentacles, or mumbled phrases from ancient mysteries, he would have gone out, fearless and alone from his body on to the astral to give battle. In that strange moment all things were at last made clear to the Duke. He had been a coward. He had shirked the conflict when he should have gone out to fight, relying alone upon the intrinsic fact that Light is more powerful than Darkness.
As he sat there he thought that he could feel a slight stiffening of his limbs. On moving them a little he was sure of it. The poison had now really begun to work on him. But it was not too late. If he did not wait there to die, but threw himself into a self-induced trance and voluntarily left his body before it was taken from him, there was still a chance that he might defeat the enemy.
Suddenly he spoke. ‘Listen, all of you; I’m going to leave you now. Whatever may happen in the next few hours, don’t despair. I shall be with you though you will not be able to see me. You will, I know, support with courage all that may be sent to you. But I am going ahead because by doing so there is just a possibility that I may yet be able to avert the awful fate with which we are all threatened. If I fail we must all suffer—perhaps for many years to come; but remember that to merit such suffering we must all have done something very evil in the past for which we shall now be paying. We have all loved each other very dearly, therefore nothing can separate us permanently. Either we shall meet again as victors in our earthly bodies, before many hours are gone, or when we have paid our debt we shall meet in those higher, happier spheres which you all know.’
Stretching out his hands towards them, his grey eyes filled with a new and brilliant light, he added: ‘May the blessing and protection of the Timeless Ones be upon you all in your hour of trial.’
Such was the awe with which his now radiant face filled them that none of them sought to dissuade him from his intention. His words had been too grave for any response other than a murmur of encouragement in the attempt that he was about to make.
When he had performed the rite of sealing the nine openings of his body and had commended it to the protection of the Powers, Marie Lou kissed his cheek tenderly; then they all sent out their thoughts to strengthen him as he settled himself in a corner of one of the settees and closed his eyes. For a few moments he concentrated his will, then his body gradually went limp and they knew that he had left it.
Directly he was free of his earthly form he cast a long last look upon the loved faces of his friends, then gathering his strength he soared up through the deck and out above the town. He could not give battle unless the Black Magician was also out of his body, but as it was not yet two o’clock he hoped to be able to catch him asleep during the midday siesta—in fact, much depended upon his doing so, as otherwise he would be deprived of any chance to save his friends from the first terrible trials which they would be called upon to endure after the semblance of life had left them. His immediate and very urgent problem, therefore, was to find the Satanist.
In a flash he was over the house on the hillside, but, as he expected, he found it a burnt-out ruin. There were some out-buildings about a hundred yards away from that end of the house which had been the servants’ quarters, and in them had been stacked a certain amount of furniture which had been salvaged from the fire. But the Doctor was not there.
It seemed to de Richleau that there was quite a possibility that the enemy had taken up his quarters in some neighbour’s house, so he visited a number of dwellings in the immediate vicinity—but without success. Swift as thought he sped back to Port-au-Prince.
The midday quiet still held the town. The streets were almost bare of traffic and there were very few pedestrians about. Even the considerably reduced crowd on the wharf-side had either congregated in the bars and cafés or had taken advantage of such patches of shade as could be found behind sheds and stacks of merchandise to sprawl upon the ground and doze.
In three thousand seconds the Duke traversed three thousand rooms in various buildings, but Doctor Saturday was not in any of them, and the task of finding him was, de Richleau realised, like looking for a needle in a haystack. The hour in which the Duke had hoped to accomplish so much was already up. It was three o’clock, and everywhere in the sun-scorched town people were waking and rising from beds, sofas, rocking-chairs and straw palliasses to set about the second half of their daily occupations.
Very reluctantly de Richleau decided that it would be waste of effort to search further. He had keyed himself up to give instant battle at any moment, but it was virtually certain that the Doctor—wherever he was—would by now have woken, and it would be many hours before he slept again. During those hours the prisoners on the gunboat must suffer all that was sent to them and the Duke knew to his sorrow that he would be unable to give them even comfort—let alone more material aid. He could only wait, praying that his courage would not ebb in the long interval that must now elapse before he could enter on his own ordeal.
Knowing that the sorcerer must sooner or later take possession of the bodies of his friends, he returned to the ship and found that there was already a marked change in their condition. At the moment he arrived Rex, with faltering tongue and laboured breathing, was complaining of the stiffness in his muscles and was endeavouring to flex them. But Simon roused himself to mutter that he felt just the same and that it would probably only prolong the mental strain if he fought against it. Richard was sitting with Marie Lou on his lap; her arms were about his neck and her cheek was pressed against his. The eyes of both were closed and it looked as though they were asleep; but the Duke knew that they were not.
For half an hour he remained there, watching the poison do its work and comforting himself a little with the thought that at least it did not appear to be causing them any great physical agony; although they were obviously suffering mentally as they felt their limbs gradually stiffening and going dead.
It is not an easy thing to surrender quietly and philosophically without any attempt to fight against a creeping paralysis which one knows must end in death, and from time to time they appeared to struggle a little against it. Simon was the first to go; he just seemed to drop asleep. Soon afterwards Marie Lou gave a little shudder and lay still. Richard, his face contorted, clutched her small body and strove to jerk himself up, but the effort proved too much and he fell back with his eyes still open but fixed and staring. Rex was the last to go; with a Herculean effort he staggered to his feet and drew himself up to his full, magnificent height, then he pitched forward across Simon, his great limbs completely rigid.
Although they all now had the appearance of death their spirits did not emerge from their bodies, and de Richleau knew that they were chained there, unable to free themselves yet equally unable any more to animate their frames through their own wills.
For some time nothing happened and it was nearly four o’clock when the officer in the sky-blue uniform entered the cabin with some papers in his hand. He gave one glance at the five still forms, uttered a shriek of terror and fled.
De Richleau was in no mood to be amused at anything, otherwise, having followed the Captain up on deck, he would have derived a considerable amount of fun from the scene that ensued. A number of Haitian notables had evidently been about to enter the cabin behind the officer, and in his panic-stricken flight he knocked several of them over. Without waiting to ascertain the cause of his terror they picked themselves up and came tumbling up the hatchway after him, to find that he had continued his flight by leaping for the gangway and dashing across it to the wharf.
In response to their shouts a squad of the Gardes d’Haiti which was standing at ease on the quay, headed him off and half-led, half-pushed, him on board again, where for some moments he stood on the quarterdeck, his eyes rolling and his knees knocking together from excess of fear, quite unable to speak.
At last they managed to reassure him sufficiently for him to stammer out that all five of the prisoners had died from some unknown cause; and that, since they had been most evil people, he was terrified lest their Duppies, or spirits, which must still be lurking there, would get him.
This news filled the deputies and generals with obvious consternation and they hastily withdrew from the companionway, many of them even leaving the ship altogether to view further events from the safer distance of the quay. As the news spread among the crowd many of the superstitious Negroes who were rubbernecking there evidently considered discretion the better part of valour and swiftly disappeared into the side-streets and alleys. For the spirits of five powerful Bocors to be loose was to them very far from being a joke.
The notables, too, would obviously have liked to leave such a dangerous vicinity, but apparently felt that their prestige would suffer if they took to flight; so the frock-coated politicians and ‘musical-comedy’ officers remained talking excitedly on either side of the gangway; but although each urged the other none of them could be persuaded to venture near the companion-way again.
De Richleau wished for a moment that he and his friends were all back in their bodies and had the use of them, as if they had walked up on deck at that moment there was no doubt that they would have been regarded with such dread that no one would have dared to lay a hand upon them. Soldiers, sailors, deputies and the common people would all have bolted like so many rabbits while the prisoners selected at their leisure another motor-boat and made their escape to sea.
However, the bodies of his four friends were now, for all practical purposes, no more than corpses, and had he endeavoured to return to his own he would only, he knew, have found it rigid and uninhabitable from the poison which had flowed through his blood-stream; so he continued to listen to the excited conversation of the Haitians, which in his astral he could follow perfectly easily although they were talking in Creole.
At length several of them reached a decision and set off at a quick walk towards the town. A quarter of an hour later they returned, accompanied by the Catholic priest in whose church the Duke and his friends had taken refuge that morning.
With no trace of fear the gaunt, sandy-haired priest walked straight down the companion-way, holding a small crucifix in front of him. Reaching the cabin, he pronounced a long Latin exorcism to drive away evil spirits. At its conclusion he turned in a matter-of-fact way to the crowd of half-castes who were gathered as anxious spectators behind him and told them that there was nothing more to fear—they could now proceed to remove the bodies.
At the orders of one of the more couragous Haitian politicians, who had remained throughout on the deck, the sailors produced some stretchers from the sick bay of the gunboat, placed the bodies upon them and covered each with a blanket. They were then taken ashore, the priest leading the procession.
When they reached the wharf there ensued a short discussion. The priest wished to take the bodies to the hospital in order that a doctor might certify them as dead, but the Haitians were very much against this and insisted that the five Duppies were doubtless still hovering somewhere in the neighbourhood, only waiting the opportunity to create the most frightful mischief, and that the priest must therefore take the corpses straight to the church; otherwise the evil Duppies might get into some of the sick people in the hospital and possess them.
A compromise was reached, by which the priest agreed that the bodies should be taken to the vestry of his church’ provided that a doctor came to certify them there.
This having been arranged the squad of Gardes d’Haiti fell in, the procession set off once more and the stretcher-bearers carried their burdens to the vestry from which de Richleau’s party had made their escape earlier in the day. Soon afterwards the Negro surgeon arrived with two companions from the hospital. After a brief examination of each corpse they reached the unanimous opinion that there was no life in any of them and wrote out the death certificates.
The vestry was then locked up while the priest went away, but a quarter of an hour later he returned with two old Negresses, who set about performing the last rites. Each body was stripped, man-handled—somewhat to the watching Duke’s repugnance—and washed; then, instead of being wrapped in a shroud, it was dressed again in its clothes as is the Negro custom. In due course some men arrived with five cheap wooden coffins. The bodies were put into them and—grim sound to the Duke’s ears—the lids were hammered down.
On the priest’s instructions the coffins were carried into the church and laid out in a row in the chancel. Having lighted a single candle for each and set these on the heads of the coffins, he said a short prayer for the departed and left the church.
In view of the rapid decomposition of corpses in the Tropics de Richleau knew that the burial would not be long delayed and would certainly take place that night. So far there had been no sign of Doctor Saturday, but the Duke did not doubt that the Satanist had means of ascertaining exactly what was going on and would put in an appearance in due course.
He felt very bitterly about having failed to locate the Doctor during the latter part of the day’s siesta as had he done so he would either have triumphed or have known the worst; and in the former case he would have been able to spare his friends the horror that each of them must now be suffering. Although they had been certified as dead he knew that consciousness had never left them. As far as they were concerned, they were in the process of being buried alive, and the terrifying rites which had been carried out in the last hour must have been infinitely more frightening for them than for himself.
At five-thirty the priest returned. With him he brought the two women who had washed the bodies and the men who had delivered the coffins, to form a small, frightened congregation, which had evidently attended only because its members feared the priest more than the Duppies of the dead. A short service was held and the coffins were carried out to a waiting cart.
The street was packed with people from end to end, as most of the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince had turned out in half-morbid, half-fearful curiosity, to witness the last stages of this strange affair which had caused such excitement throughout the whole town.
The cart moved off, its driver having great difficulty in forcing the two mangy-looking donkeys that drew it through the press; and the priest followed in an ancient, rickety barouche. They drove for some two miles outside the town, to a large cemetery the vast crowd trailing after them in complete and awe-struck silence.
Inside the cemetery five shallow graves had been prepared in a row and the coffins were lowered into them. Only the boldest of the crowd would venture through the cemetery gates to witness the final stages of the service, and de Richleau, who had hovered above the cortège, suddenly saw that Doctor Saturday was among these.
The Satanist did not approach the graves but stood on the fringe of the little group and appeared to be watching the ceremony only out of the corner of his eye; yet as the priest read the last rites de Richleau felt certain that he could see a satisfied smile twitching the corners of the Doctor’s mouth.
Immediately the service was concluded the grave-diggers hurriedly shovelled in the earth, which rattled with a hollow sound upon the coffins. The priest got into his barouche again, the crowd at the gates began to melt like magic and with anxious glances at the setting sun those who had been in the cemetery hurried away from it, including the Doctor; who evidently had no intention of claiming his victims as yet.
There followed for the Duke a long and trying wait, during which he found it impossible to keep his thoughts from the tortures which his friends must be suffering down there under the earth. In vain he strove to reach them and to bring them comfort, but he very much doubted if they were even conscious of his astral presence, and their own spirits now had no means whatever of expressing themselves.
Darkness enveloped the sea, the coast, the groups of graceful palm-trees, the poorly-kept little fields of maize, coffee and cotton, the scattered dwellings, the dense tropical jungle further inland and the ragged mountains beyond. The land became again what de Richleau had felt it to be two nights before, when he had gazed out from the Doctor’s verandah; a place reeking with primitive sexual urges and saturated in stealthy, creeping evil.
One by one the lights in the houses went out. Then, at about eleven o’clock, somewhere in the distance he heard the sharp staccato note of the Petro drums as they began to beat at the opening of a Voodoo ceremony.
The drums went on and on, gradually increasing the pace of their rhythm until it felt as though the whole dark scene was pulsing to them. With his astral sight de Richleau, still hovering above the newly-made graves, could see the long road that led from the cemetery to the town. There was not a movement upon it, and he knew that after the happenings of the day not a soul in Port-au-Prince, with the possible exception of a Catholic priest, would dare to venture within a mile of that place while the darkness lasted; and the priest, who had buried the five bodies with the firm conviction that the dead do not return, would certainly not come out again to the cemetery that night.
In the opposite direction the road wound up along a rising cliff to a high place overlooking the sea and about quarter of an hour before midnight the Duke’s attention was caught by a long snake of light gradually emerging from the blackness of the distant hillside. A few moments later it disappeared, only to reappear nearer and brighter, and the process was repeated. It was, as he knew, following the bends of the road that led down to the cemetery, and whenever it blacked out it was passing behind a mass of thick, tropical vegetation.
As the snake wound nearer the note of the drums grew louder and a dirge-like chant welled up into the still, sultry air. At the same time the snake gradually dissolved into a hundred separate points of gleaming light, and the Duke saw that it was a long procession in which each person was carrying a lighted pinewood torch. The head of what had been the “snake” reached the gates of the cemetery at exactly midnight.
The chant was abruptly broken off, the drums ceased to beat and a great shouting went up from the men and women who had formed the “snake”. Then their leader advanced and, as a sudden silence fell, called aloud upon Baron Cimeterre, the Lord of the Cemetery, to give them entrance. De Richleau had no knowledge of how the thing was done, but silently and smoothly, without the touch of a human hand, the iron gates swung open.
The new graves were some distance from the gates but by focussing his sight the Duke could quite clearly see the head of the procession, which was now entering them. The leading figure was one to inspire terror into the most courageous heart. It was that of a tall man, decked out in the hideous panoply of an African Witch Doctor.
His body and arms were smeared with various-coloured paints, forming whirls, stars and circles. Above his short, full, grass skirt—like that of a ballet girl—there dangled from his belt a row of human skulls; a dozen long necklaces of sharks’ teeth and barracuda jaws hung from his neck and clattered on his breast. In his hand he shook a great ascon, a gourd dressed in sacred beads and snake vertebrae, the rattle of which is believed by Voodooists to be the voice of the gods whispering to their priests. Upon his head was a fantastic erection, from which emerged a pair of pointed horns, and his face was covered by a devilish mask. But de Richleau could see through the hideous trappings and knew that it was Doctor Saturday.
Behind him, each with a hand placed on the hip of the person in front, snaked the long procession, advancing slowly in a curious jog-trot dance of three steps forward and two steps back. As they came onward they began to chant in praise of the grim Lord of that fearsome place. At last they reached the graves and, one by one, sticking their torches upright in the earth before them, formed a swaying circle round the patch of newly-turned earth. Then there began the most macabre scene that de Richleau had ever witnessed.
At the signal from the Doctor a score of assistant devil-priests, all clad in weird garments and hideously painted, flung themselves upon the graves and with their bare hands tore the earth away until the five coffins were exposed. When this had been done a libation of rum was poured into the grave and little bowls of corn and fruit were offered. At another signal some of the associates wrenched the lid from one of the coffins. Rex was inside it. Grabbing at his arms, they dragged his body up into a sitting position.
The Doctor went down into the grave to face it and, amidst deathly silence, called aloud: ‘Rex Van Ryn, I command you to rise and answer me.’
De Richleau knew that by the enchantments which the Satanist had performed Rex must answer. His head suddenly began to roll upon his shoulders, horribly grotesque, and from his still stiff lips there came a whisper: ‘Here I am.’
The Priest of Evil lifted his ascon and beat Rex upon the head with it, to awaken him further. As Rex jerked himself backwards to escape the blows his limbs began to twitch spasmodically with the animation that was returning to his body. The associates then dragged him up out of the coffin and hustled him up the little slope at the edge of the grave.
As further coffins were opened de Richleau three times more witnessed this profanity inflicted upon his friends. Simon, Marie Lou and Richard in turn were wakened from their deathly sleep, reanimated and dragged, captive, from the tomb. Purely by chance the ghouls wrenched the lid off the Duke’s coffin last. He then looked down upon his own corpse and heard the Satanist call him, too, by name. For the first time in many hours he felt a little glow of warmth enter his cold, tired heart. There was no answer— there could not be—because his spirit was still free.
There was an utter silence for a moment, then the Black Magician called him by name again. Still there was no answer.
Threats, imprecations and blasphemies followed, streaming from the thick lips of the devil’s priest. He stooped and struck the corpse in the face, again and again, in a furious endeavour to drag forth a response. But there was none.
After ten minutes of unceasing effort he gave up the struggle, ordering some of his assistants to pick up de Richleau’s still inanimate body and carry it away.
A thanksgiving ceremony to the Lord of the Cemetery was performed, then the devil-worshippers prepared to depart. They did not recede in Indian file as they had come, but, still holding their torches aloft, in one great crowd, in the middle of which Rex, Richard, Simon and Marie Lou, on their own feet but bemused and only semi-conscious, were hustled along.
The drums and the chanting began again; no longer a dirge but a paean of triumph at Evil having overcome Good. Stamping, gesticulating and dancing, the crowd of weirdly-dressed figures made its way up the hill for the best part of three miles, until it came to a great Hounfort, on the high place above the sea.
De Richleau’s body was laid out in front of the altar to Baron Cimeterre and the other four victims were thrust forward until they stood in a row beside the Duke’s body, upright on their feet but their heads and arms hanging loosely. A brazier was brought and on its fire the Witch Doctor heated some liquid in a small ladle. When it was warm he shook into it a little powder from one of the skulls at his girdle; then the four victims were held while he forced a drop of it between the lips of each.
At the Satanist’s command the four were hustled away and thrown into a filthy shack, when they collapsed, half-conscious, upon the ground. It was lit by a single candle so that they could see faintly, but the Duke, who had passed into the shack and was hovering above their heads, felt his heart wrung at the blank stare which each regarded his companions. They did not know one another.
Outside a further ceremony was in progress, but the Duke could see that the evil priest was hurrying through it; and he guessed the reason. All was not yet done in this fell night’s work. One of the five had failed to respond to the Doctor’s summons and he was anxious to get to work upon the recalcitrant spirit which still defied him.
Immediately the ritual was concluded the Satanist had the Duke’s body carried into a sanctum behind the altar, and as soon as his senior assistants were out of earshot of the crowd they began to question him anxiously as to what had gone wrong; but he at once assured them that there was no cause at all for alarm. He said that he had means with which he could force the corpse to answer and that he meant to apply them all in good time.
Reassured that there was no likelihood of the Duke’s Duppy suddenly appearing on the scene to revenge itself and his friends, the assistants went out and joined in the wild scene of depravity to which the lesser brethren of the Order had already given way. A hundred or more men and women, all of whom had participated in the ghoulish rites, were now executing an obscene dance in the compound. To the furious beating of the high-pitched drums they whirled, cavorted and leapt high into the air, and many of them seemed to have been seized upon by something more evil and more powerful than their own spirits, for here and there a number of them were frothing at the mouth as though about to be struck with a fit of epilepsy.
The Doctor came out and watched them for a moment, then he strode to the foul hovel which contained the four prisoners. Snatching a low cowhide whip from the wall, he laid about them with it. Unable to cry out, robbed of all their individuality and courage, they cowered away from him like four tortured animals, tears streaming from their semi-sightless eyes as he struck again and again at their shoulders, faces and legs.
‘Zombies!’ he panted with horrible exultation, suddenly flinging the whip aside. ‘You are Zombies now! You will work fiendishly and tirelessly in my fields or at any degrading task that I may set you. For you there is no escape and no respite for many years to come. You are my slaves; and, as such, you shall labour like brute-beasts until accident or old age releases you. You have no wits, no understanding, and only a misty memory of the past: too little to recognise your fifth companion when he comes to join you. I go now, in the full knowledge of my power, to force his spirit and compel him to acknowledge that I am his master.’
De Richleau knew that there was nothing that he could do to help his friends and that his own body lay entirely at the Satanist’s mercy. It was impossible for him even to begin the battle—that battle which meant so much—until the Doctor slept; and what powers the Satanist might be able to exert in the meantime was a matter which the Duke had no means of guessing. Perhaps he was already too late. Perhaps by his former cowardice he had robbed himself of all chance of being able to meet his enemy in battle on the astral.
Dismissing that awful thought which sapped his courage, he summoned all his fortitude to endure in patience the new ceremony of compulsion which his adversary was about to exercise upon his corpse, while he could only remain a helpless spectator.